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Media Platforms Design TeamApril 10, 2006, NEW YORK – NASA announced today that it will launch a new robotic mission to the moon in late 2008, piggybacking on the already-scheduled Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The new mission, called the LCROSS, or Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, takes advantage of the extra payload capacity of NASA’s new Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). The new mission has two components: An impactor will slam into the moon’s South Pole, sending up a massive plume of lunar dust almost 40 miles high....

Media Platforms Design TeamNerf weapons have come a long way in recent years, with manual single-shot guns gradually giving way to battery-aided rapid-fire weapons. The latest entry to this burgeoning subsection of foam-based ballistics is the Nerf Stampede ($50)—a tripod-mounted, battery-powered weapon that is capable of taking preloaded ammo magazines for quick reloading in tight spots. We’ve tested the weapon in various office battles. The verdict: Not only is the Stampede the best overall Nerf gun ever, but it is also easier to use and less prone to jams than previous battery-powered automatic Nerf guns....

Last Thursday, a piece from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was recovered on Tresco Island off the southwest coast of Great Britain. Recovered by the U.K.’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the debris was originally identified as a piece of the CRS-7 resupply mission to the International Space Station that launched and failed on June 28, 2015. But Reddit wasn’t fooled. The rocket panel didn’t appear to have any damage associated with a failed launch....

An oncoming car suddenly splashes a huge wave of muddy water at you. Panicked, you manage to toggle the windshield wipers on, clearing the sluicing muddy water away. But as the water dries, your vision is clouded by the remaining muddy film. Desperately searching for a small spot of vision, you attempt two things–look for a safe way out of traffic, and yank on the toggle for the windshield washers. But the traffic isn’t cooperating, nor are the washers....

Kerbal Space Program is a nerdy physics sim with a gigantic cult following. With players able to build the rocket ship of their dreams and see if their dreams can actually make it out of the atmosphere, it’s no surprise that there’s some crossover with other fandoms. But on the Kerbal subreddit, one intrepid user named Bill Zarr took things to the final frontier, building a model of the Starship Enterprise complete with a shuttle docking bay....

Using technologies first tested with the X-51, the Air Force wants to build a hypersonic jet by 2023. The service already has outlined a few parameters for the new jet: It must be able to go Mach 5, or 3,806 miles per hour. It should use a scramjet engine, which largely relies on swift airflow for oxidation to propel the plane forward. And it needs to be able to operate at the scalding-hot temperatures created by the friction at speeds far exceeding the speed of sound....

Nate BallBoston, Mass.Age: 28Years on Job: 6 Nate Ball spent his childhood tinkering in the backyard. “I grew up without TV, so I spent all my time being creative and making stuff,” he says. That came in handy when he entered the 2005 Soldier Design Competition as a mechanical engineering student at MIT. The team’s challenge: Create a device that would allow a person to scale a structure quickly. Today, their invention—the Atlas Power Ascender—is used by the military and government agencies to climb mountains, buildings and ships around the world....

The official release of Microsoft’s wild holographic headset is probably still a long way off, but this morning Microsoft announced that it’s going to start selling early units to developers. The catch? It is not cheap at all. Those kits cost a cool $3,000.In a world of Oculus Rifts and Samsung Gear VRs, Microsoft’s Hololens is a unique little device. It’s not VR; instead it shows you “holograms” that float in the real world....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe video is compelling and strange—a plain-clothed aeronautics researcher in a nondescript room opens his hand, revealing a stiff but colorful hummingbird. The creature’s wings flap, undulating quickly to generate lift, and it rises from his hand. The pitch of the wings shifts subtly; the bird tips forward to zip across the room. All the moves are graceful and organic: It speeds along steadily, hovers on command and rises with sharp precision....

In the future, you don’t carry cash or credit cards, and you don’t wait in line. Instead, a magical piece of wearable tech is your everything.There’s a gadget that’s already testing this vision of tomorrow, and it’s not the Apple Watch. It’s at Disney World, of all places. Wired has an interesting report on Disney’s new $1 billion gamble: a smart wristband preprogrammed with the user’s trip itinerary, granting them access to the entire Disneyworld park without the need to carry cash or card....

NASA is working on a new landing technology that could be huge for future missions to other worlds. The Lander Vision System would automatically find a solid landing spot for a vehicle through continuous imaging and comparison.If you want to know why finding a good landing spot quickly matters, just look at history. The Apollo 11 mission almost went wrong when the craft nearly ran out of fuel for descent after a botched landing attempt....

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to cancel the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. This new tactical vehicle would have replaced the Army and Marines’ outdated Humvees, but the JLTV designs were too heavy and too expensive. With the program now on the chopping block, PM took matters into our own hands: We called defense experts who helped us design the ideal new military jeep. We call it the Popular Mechanics Light Tactical Vehicle....

View full post on VimeoNo matter what happens in Sunburn, one thing is for sure: You are going to die. The game, coming to iOS devices on Nov. 20, puts the player in space as a stranded astronaut who must cling to other space travelers for dear life. The goal of the game is to steer you and your crew into a nearby star. Doesn’t sound like the vacation you had in mind?...

Media Platforms Design Team After much speculation and a slew of spy photos over the past year, General Motors has finally given us a full look at the Hummer H3T pickup, which will make its official debut next week at the Chicago Auto Show. The midsize truck has a 5-ft. bed behind a four-door, five-passenger Hummer H3 cab. Unlike the H2 pickup, it’s doesn’t have a mid-gate at the cab’s rear, but rather a completely closed cab and separate bed—like a true pickup....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat It Is2011 Porsche Boxster SpyderThe SpecsEntry level Porsche Boxsters (and their Cayman fraternal twin Coupes) have always been the quintessential, fun-to-drive sports car. Porsche has distilled that essence even further with the Spyder version. Starting with the Boxster’s mid-engined chassis, Porsche has reduced the overall weight by 176 pounds to 2,811 lbs. Gasoline direct injection raises the output of the 3.2-liter direct-injection flat-6 engine by 10 hp , to 320 hp....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhy Lasso an Asteroid?The answer involves politics and money. Although the moon is just three days away and offers valuable resources such as water ice, the White House canceled NASA’s Constellation program, and its plan to return to the moon, in 2010. At this point there is no chance the Obama administration will reverse course and adopt this Bush administration goal.So, NASA had to find another nearby destination for future exploration, and the capture-an-asteroid mission gives the agency a near-term target just beyond the moon....

MORE GREEN TECHNOLOGY STORIES* PLUS: PM Debunks 5 Half Truths about Recycling* COMPLETE COVERAGE: More Recycling and Eco-Friendly NewsGreen Building Award: BottleStoneFor years, Paul Burns liked to futz around with adding recycled materials to the clay tiles his San Jose shop produced. Those just-for-fun experiments yielded BottleStone, a combination of clay, cement, and old glass that looks uncannily like real granite, but takes much less energy to produce. BottleStone’s ersatz stone–which consists mainly of glass sourced from Bay Area recycling programs–will initially appear in countertops and bathroom vanities, but Burns’ ultimate ambition is to sheathe the facades of skyscrapers in it....

More than 20 years after its approval, aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in everything from soft drinks to toothpaste, is the center of renewed debate over its potential to cause cancer. In an attempt to simulate a range of human intakes, researchers at the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences fed 1800 rats varying amounts of aspartame. Upon their deaths, the rats’ organs were examined for microscopic changes.The results were not good....

Media Platforms Design TeamMalibu, Calif.–It doesn’t fly. Yes, it’s electric. Yes, it makes all the right whirring and swooshing sci-fi sounds future cars are supposed to make. Yes, it looks like it comes straight out of Blade Runner. And, yes, it shape-shifts like it was guest starring on Battlestar Galactica. But despite all this, the all-wheel-drive Audi e-tron concept car simply won’t fly. Sorry. But it does drive, like a real, honest, two-seat sports car....

Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO — The Bimmer team announced its plan to return to the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) with this gorgeous winged M3 coupe that’ll hit the tracks starting late in the 2008 season—with some eco-friendly power, no less. It’ll be the first V8-powered M3 ever raced, as all previous production M3s were powered by six-cylinder engines. BMW says the P65 race version of the 4-liter V-8 engine produces 485 hp and uses a 6-speed sequential racing transmission....